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Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees

Hon. Michael Chong

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
  • Conservative
  • Wellington—Halton Hills
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $120,269.09

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 80 - Jun/2/22
Hon. Michael Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC)
  • Jun/2/22 5:25:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there are three reforms to the Standing Orders and procedure of the House and its committees that the House should consider. First, the Speaker's right of recognition should be restored. The Speaker has effectively lost the right of recognition during many proceedings of this House: during debate, during Oral Questions and during other proceedings of the House. That right of recognition has been replaced by the list system, managed by the whips and House leaders, which has effectively displaced the Speaker's authority. During most of the proceedings of this House, in order for a member to speak, the member's name has to be put on a list to speak by the House leader or whip's office, but too often members do not have a voice in the House because they cannot get on the list, which is submitted by the House leaders and whips to the Speaker and the computer screen in front of you, Madam Speaker, to determine who gets to speak. The House should do away with the list system and replace it with a system established and controlled by the Speaker. That system should have two principles: First, all members who wish to speak should get to speak; second, time allocated to individual members who wish to speak should be distributed as equitably as possible to those members who wish to speak. As I understand it, in the U.K. Parliament, members who wish to speak, whether to a bill or during Oral Questions, go through a system established and controlled by the Speaker. For example, all members who wish to speak to a bill get to speak, because the time allotted for debate is divided by the number of members who wish to speak. Those members go to the Speaker, rather than through their whips or House leaders, to indicate that they wish to speak. For example, if four hours are allotted for debate on a bill at second reading and 40 members have indicated to the Speaker they wish to speak, the 240 minutes are divided by the 40 members. Thus, six minutes are allotted to each member to speak. In that system, members who wish to speak get to speak, which is more fair and more equitable than the system we have. I hope all members of this House will take up this idea of restoring the Speaker's right of recognition and thereby restoring a more equitable distribution of time for members in this House to speak. The second area of reform the House should consider is standing committees. In 2002, the Standing Orders were changed, a move supported by then finance minister Paul Martin, to address the democratic deficit by replacing the appointment of committee chairs with their election. Unfortunately, that well-intentioned change has not worked out in practice. While technically committee members can elect committee chairs, they are effectively appointed, 21 by the Prime Minister and four by the leader of the official opposition. That is because the moving of a nomination of a member for chair is done in public, and the whips use that fact to ensure that only the member whom the Prime Minister or the official opposition leader wishes to be chair is nominated for the position, with the result that the member is acclaimed as chair. One way to fix this is to require a secret preferential ballot on which all the names are listed of committee members of the recognized party from which the chair is to be selected. That way, no nominations for chair take place, and the 12 members of the committee decide on a secret single preferential ballot who will be chair. To make committees more effective, a second reform should be considered. The House should consider distributing the 25 chairs of standing committees in a way that is proportionate to the recognized parties in this House. Currently, the ministerial party has 21 out of 25 chairs and the official opposition has four out of 25 chairs. The NDP and the Bloc have no chairs of standing committees. This is not proportionate to the standings of the various recognized parties in the House of Commons and does not reflect the Parliament that Canadians elected back in the 2021 election. The House should also consider a third change to committees so that committee members would be elected by members of their respective recognized party caucuses. These elections on a secret preferential ballot could take place at the same time that the House meets to elect the new Speaker. Taken in totality, a secret ballot preferential election of committee chairs, a secret ballot preferential election of committee members and the proportionate distribution of standing committee chairs among the recognized parties in the House would have the effect of making standing committees much more independent of party leaders, particularly the Prime Minister, with a greater ability to hold the government accountable to a much greater degree. I will add that these reforms were enacted by the U.K. Parliament a decade ago and they had been adopted to a great degree of acclimation. By all accounts, they have been a great success, and they have strengthened the committee system. The third area of reform the House should consider is to take away the Prime Minister’s power to make key appointments in this place. The clerk of the House of Commons should be appointed by the Speaker and not by the Prime Minister. In other Westminster parliaments, the clerk is appointed by the Speaker on the recommendation of a committee of MPs that has vetted various candidates. In fact, in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, that is exactly the process that is in place, as is the case in the U.K. Parliament and in the Australian Parliament. The Sergeant-at-Arms should also be appointed by the Speaker, rather than the Prime Minister. Most importantly, the majority of the members on the Board of Internal Economy should not be appointed by the Prime Minister, either directly or indirectly, but rather elected by the members of this House on a secret ballot. Members of the ministry, as well as officers of the House on both sides of the aisle, should not be eligible for the majority of positions on the BOIE. In other words, the majority of members on the BOIE should be backbench members of Parliament elected by their peers on a secret ballot vote. Those are three areas of reform the House should consider. First, restoring the Speaker's right of recognition by empowering the Speaker to establish a new system whereby members get recognized, a system that is controlled and managed by the Speaker. Second, reforms to committees that will make them more independent of party leaders, particularly the Prime Minister. Third, remove the Prime Minister's power to appoint the clerk, the Sergeant-at-Arms and the majority of members on the BOIE, and giving that power, through an election, to members of Parliament. I have a couple of final comments. It is my view that the rights and privileges in this place are increasingly attaching to recognized parties, rather than to the 337 individual members of this House. For example, members who are not members of recognized parties cannot sit as a regular member on a committee. Another example is that routine motions at committee increasingly divide time among the four recognized parties on a committee, rather than among the 11 members. As a result, some members get way more time on committees than others do. This has created a two-tier system. Those who are members of recognized parties have greater rights than those who are members of non-recognized parties in this place. We have also created a two-tier system within recognized parties in this House. Those who are under the good grace and favour from the party leadership get to speak when they want, get on committees they want, and so on. Up to the 1960s, for over 100 years, our parliamentary conventions attached rights and privileges to individual members elected to legislatures and parliaments across the land, rather than to parties. With the establishment of recognized parties in this House in the 1960s, rights are increasingly attached to the parties rather than to individuals. It can be argued that this has subverted our constitutional order, which was clearly set up to recognize the individual member as the primary organizing entity and the party as secondary. This is an issue we all need to be thinking about as we contemplate reforms to this place to strengthen our parliamentary democracy. Finally, hybrid Parliament must end. We must end hybrid Parliament when we adjourn in June. While we may continue with the voting app, we need to return to full, in-person Parliament when Parliament resumes this September. It is vitally important for this House and its committees to go back to full, in-person sittings to ensure that we, once again, strengthen our parliamentary democracy and ensure that we pass along this institution to our children and grandchildren stronger than we inherited it.
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